I will share new products that I find to help our families affected with Autism and news stories that I find interesting.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

How “Parenthood” Broke Down The Autism Awareness Barrier

In a series that has depicted teenage pregnancy, abortion,
alcoholism, a breast cancer battle, and a young war veteran’s PTSD, one
of the most emotional, and painful, scenes to watch on NBC’s Parenthood came when Max Braverman (Max Burkholder)
went on his first unsupervised school field trip in Season 5. A few
hours in, he is so tormented by his classmates, he throws a tantrum and
has to be picked up by his parents. In the car ride home, after two
hours of silence, Max begins to tell them how one of his peers peed in
his canteen. “Why do all the other kids hate me?” Max asks. “Is it
because I’m weird?” His parents, Kristina (Monica Potter) and Adam
(Peter Krause), are speechless, but Max is overwhelmingly honest. It’s a
moment that showcases a realistic situation many people on the autism
spectrum, like Max, and the families of those people unfortunately deal
with regularly.

critically
acclaimed

When Parenthood showrunner Jason Katims
started thinking about Season 5, he knew the difficult scene was on the
horizon. “I had this instinct that I really wanted to make sure we
weren’t sugarcoating the experience of what it would be like for Max.
And I was thinking about what would be the next challenge and I thought
the next challenge would be Max’s awareness that he was different,”
Katims told BuzzFeed News of the character who was diagnosed with
Asperger’s in the show’s first season. “I thought that that scene itself
was just so wrenching and… Max in particular was so relentless in his
performance. He went to a place with it where he was really there and it
was just such a beautiful, heartbreaking scene.”

Parenthood,
which begins its sixth and final season on Sept. 25, has been telling
the poignant story of Max’s battle with autism since the series
premiered, detailing his diagnosis and the subsequent issues that both
he and the extended Braverman family deal with at the heart of the show
as he grows and struggles with his disorder daily. And while a majority
of that comes from Katims, who has a child with Asperger’s — though he
is clear to note that Max is not directly based on his own son —
Burkholder has also made incredible contributions to the show’s
portrayal of a child on the autism spectrum. “As a parent who’s gone
through this and knowing a lot of parents who have gone through this, I
had a wealth of experience and things to draw from as a storyteller,”
Katims said. “But Max gave me the confidence to know I didn’t have to
shy away from any story.”